Star Crystal (1986)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

Mission Log: Some actors who thankfully never worked again are stranded with a blob of alien Play-Doh aboard a ship that never seems to go anywhere.

Here are some of my observations during playback:

• Whatever budget this movie had, none of it was put into the main credits.
• We’re in 2032 and expeditions to Mars are now merely routine. Something to look forward to I guess.
• Cheap sci-fi movies can always be immediately spotted by the quality of anyone’s space helmets.
• There’s a red lens over the camera, so that definitely means we’re on Mars.
• A British computer voice always lends an air of sophistication to a shit movie.
• Thirteen years into the future and Coca-Cola still feels the need for product placement.
• Why does the pilot of this ship insist on flying it at a permanent 45° angle? Level off for chrissakes.
• It seems that the rock that was brought on board gave birth to the star crystal since its water broke all over the place.
• Ha! The pilot finally took my advice.
• Some sort of pink slug has manifested and is worshiping the star crystal.
• They couldn’t even add sound FX to this stationary shot of the space ship. Just a slow pan around against a black backdrop. John Dykstra is spinning in his grave and the friggin’ guy isn’t even dead yet.
• A staple of cheap SCI-FI: the Commodore 64 interface. I miss mine awfully.
• I swear one of those computer terminals was the UI for the Flux Capacitor time circuits. It even read 1955.
• The air supply is shut off and everyone is dead. Is that it? Are we done here?
• Shit, no we’re not. It’s two months later and we’re at some spinning space station left over from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• The shot of the shuttle docking at the station was so familiar, I thought someone was going to announce that a freighter was captured entering the remains of the Alderaan system.
  

  What you will eventually get if you don’t flush your Sea Monkeys.

• Not a ton of money put into sets either I see.
• I was convinced that Lt. Lynn was the same chick from The House On Sorority Row that delivered that now classic line, but I was wrong.
• The now sentient alien blob is listening in on some inane chatter and breathing heavy – how very ominous.
• This is going to be a very rough month to get through.
• To get a starring role in this movie, did you just have to show up to the meeting and not shit on the floor?
• What just exploded, the shuttle or the station?
• OK, it was the station.
• The actress playing Billy couldn’t comb her skank-afro just once during the production?
• Since it will take this crew over a year to reach earth, I’m guessing that warp speed has not been invented yet.
• This movie is fucking painful.
• This crew is never going to get anything done if they insist on hating their Captain this much.
• There goes Billy Skank-afro. One down.
• The rapport between Cal and Sherrie is proof positive that the #metoo movement will not make it into the future.
• This God awful script is not getting any better with the actors all talking with their mouths full.
• I’m almost beginning to miss Xtro and Inseminoid.
  
• Why are there no hallways and just crawl spaces on this fucking ship?
• Sweet Jesus, even the music in this movie is terrible. There’s nothing worse than a futuristic synth riff that mimics the shower scene in Psycho.
  

  The hair looks better on the FX doll than it did on the actress.

• Billy’s corpse is basically just a drained mummy – wow, shocking.
• Low on food, low on fuel, low on air, and over a year away from earth – time to get shit-faced! I like the way this Captain thinks.
• Cal and Captain Campbell could have tried a little harder with their drunk acting.
• That computer readout of the alien substance looked just like the one Richard Pryor got when he tried to analyze what Kryptonite was made of in Superman II.
• The alien goo finds it’s way to Sherrie and devours her too. Good, she should have been gone. Long ago.
• This whole shit movie was worth it for that Steve Perry joke.
• The sad thing is that Sherrie could have been rescued if everyone didn’t have to fucking crawl everywhere on this stupid shuttle.
• Cal’s dead now too. I think that they didn’t want to pay the actors either. This movie is half over and there’s only two people left on the shuttle.
• Oh yeah, the star crystal is still there on the table. Doing nothing.
• Someone tell Captain Campbell that turning off the air supply is quite easy. That band is horrible.
• The actor who is the voice of the pilot of the rescue ship is fucking terrible too, and all he’s doing is reading his lines, not acting them; just reading them.
• I hate this movie.
• Costs were cut with the appearance of the rescue ship since it is the same exact one as the shuttle this opus is taking place in.
• Christ, now we’re throwing asteroids into th shit stew.
• Two days later? Why put up this title card now? Who cares? Why won’t my desperate pleas be answered?
• If these two assholes decide to go to Tosche’s station to pick up some power converters, my computer is getting thrown off of my balcony.
• A black skeleton? This movie is not only terrible but racist.
  

  I think most of the budget went into buying that huge crystal from Spencers Gifts at the local mall.

• Captain Campbell is full of shit, the yarn he is spinning is not the history of the Campbell Soup Company.
• Is this pile of asthmatic pink goo ever going to do something interesting?
• It starts reading the bible. Fuck this.
• I think that everyone on this shuttle had to crawl so that the movie lasted ninety minutes. If everyone walked in normal hallways it would be over in thirty.
• With fifteen minutes to go the alien starts talking and all he gives us is that overdone, “Your kind destroys” speech.
• Please end.
• The alien’s name is GAR. I’m not going to have enough time for the inevitable Sam Elliot Mask jokes.
• Holy shit, production sprang for another space ship model.
• A plot-advancing 80’s montage now at the end of the movie? Jesus wept.
• GAR values the friendships he has made and will always miss the crew members. Aww, now we’re going for a Disney tearjerker ending.
• If you survive this shit-fest, at least try to enjoy the ending theme, “Crystal Of A Star.” I didn’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.

Scare Stars: It’s barely watchable, forget scary. I think this might be a contender for the SAT question, “Manos: The Hands Of Fate is to MST3K as what is to Jim’s Schlocktoberfest reviews?” It has nothing to do with this movie, but I always get a soupçon concerned when late September arrives and I only have five reviews written. I’ll get to the finish line as always, but ya know what I mean?

Gore Galaxy: There’s some blood and three dried up corpses. GAR is perpetually moist and slimy, but that doesn’t really register as gore if you think about it.

Heavenly Bodies: No that would have cost the production another $20.

Best Transmission:  Shit Actor #1: “What level is 4 on?”  Shit Actor #2: “Second.”  How is that possible?

Best Visual: There was not one.

Worst Visual: There was nothing but.

Damage Report: Here at my halfway mark for Schlock ’19, I’m beginning to get a bad feeling out here in space. This one was a galactic-sized bed-shitter. No budget, actors who were forcibly removed from their shifts at In-N-Out Burger, and dialogue that makes you envious of the deaf. 

Kobayashi Maru Score: